


tea and not much sympathy

by slashedsilver



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Animal Transformation, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Magical Artifacts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8723608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashedsilver/pseuds/slashedsilver
Summary: Professional thief Hakyeon steals something he shouldn't have, and it's up to sorcerer Taekwoon to save the day. Well, if Taekwoon chooses to, of course.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TRASHCAKE](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TRASHCAKE/gifts).



> Dear recipient, your prompts were hilarious and I had fun writing them! I hope you enjoy recognising the ones I put in. Happy holidays, and I wish you the very happiest ♥
> 
> Thanks to everyone who stuck with me through this time, and to the enabler of bikini feels for the title, the beta, and assurances that this was not the end of the world.

Taekwoon’s peaceful day is ruined when someone clatters up the doorstep to his workshop, yelling in an even louder voice.

“Taekwoonie! Taekwoonie!”

“I’m not here,” he instructs his cat, who licks a paw disdainfully in his direction.

“Tell him yourself,” Sanghyuk replies. His tail draws a circle in the chalk marks, messing up the carefully drawn sigils Taekwoon had been working on all morning.

Taekwoon pushes him off the table. He lands perfectly on all four paws. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping me with my work?”

Sanghyuk perks up. “Is that what they told you when you bought me? And you believed them?” 

Taekwoon is offended.

So is Hakyeon, who has thrown himself into Taekwoon’s wicker chair in a huff. “I’ve been calling you for ten minutes! Couldn’t you hear me?”

“Too well,” Taekwoon mumbles, trying to avoid eye contact. Hakyeon always has terrible timing: every second of every day.

His uninvited guest glares at him now. "Well? Aren't you going to ask me what happened?" Hakyeon reaches for the glass of water on the table, then gingerly sets it down when his fingers come away dusty. “Gross. How long has that been there?”

There's a smudge right in the middle of the words to the toad transformation spell in Taekwoon’s spell book. It's in the shape of a paw. He turns to the obvious culprit, who must have sensed his killing aura because he's nowhere in sight. Traitor.

Hakyeon, tired of waiting, has started launching into an impassioned story about old clothes, fake moustaches and someone's gold statuette.

"A gold statuette in the shape of poop?" Taekwoon repeats despite himself. “Why would someone make a tribute to poop?”

“How should I know? Maybe it was a carefully worded insult to an ex-lover. Maybe he had constipation for a long time. I don't ask the questions. I just get people the objects of their heart's desire. Anyway!” Hakyeon says quickly, before Taekwoon can open his mouth. “It’s cursed."

Taekwoon notices for the first time that Hakyeon's right hand is carefully tucked behind his back, and sudden dread rises in him. "No."

"You have to help me!" Hakyeon whines, changing tactics. He brandishes his poop-riddled hand in front of Taekwoon's face, so quickly that all he can see is a flash of gold. "How can you let your best friend walk around in civilised society like this?" 

"You're not my best friend," Taekwoon replies automatically. “Is that real gold?”

"Yes." Hakyeon beams, proudly displaying his hand, where the solid poop is fused firmly to the palm like it had always been there. "One kilogram of pure gold." He smiles at Taekwoon like that might change his mind.

“No.” Taekwoon takes a step back, and almost trips on the hem of his robes. “I already told you, I don’t do curse breaking. I’m a herbalist, Hakyeon!”

Hakyeon’s brow stitches together in thought. “Sounds the same to me.”

“It’s a different specialisation.”

“It’s all under sorcery.” Hakyeon tries another winning smile, the same smile he used to wear when he begged Taekwoon to let him copy his spell homework. Right before he dropped out of magic school.

“What about Jaehwan--” 

“You were always way better at spellwork,” Hakyeon argues, though he looks a bit pink. “Of course I would go to the best.”

Taekwoon sighs. "How do you always end up in situations like these?"

Hakyeon looks wounded. "You say it like I get poop statuettes stuck to my hand all the time."

Well, not poop statuettes, but there was the time Hakyeon's hair turned a horrible sickly goopy green because of a mermaid curse, or the time he got some sort of eye tattoo permanently stuck on his hand and it turned out to be a homing signal for pigeons. Because Hakyeon would just overreact if he mentions it, Taekwoon keeps it all safely in his head. 

For a non-magic person, though, Hakyeon is pretty good at reading people's minds. Or Taekwoon’s, at least. "It's the risks of the job!" Hakyeon protests, offended by whatever Taekwoon didn't say.

Taekwoon squints. "Stealing isn't a job."

"I'm a professional thief! I get paid for my excellent skills!" Hakyeon helps himself to the cookies on the table with the hand that isn't a pedestal for golden poop. “You’re a sorcerer. I’ll pay you for your excellent skills too!”

Taekwoon remembers the payment he received for finding the pigeons a new home. A large bouquet of flowers from Wonshik’s Wuvly Wonders delivered on a magical rolling carriage complete with an entourage of bluebirds holding a banner in their beaks as the robins chirped out a personalised rap to disco beats. He had guests in the house at that time. His mother had squealed in happiness and started planning his wedding. Because Jaehwan had unfortunately been present as well, within two hours the entire town found out that Taekwoon Had A Suitor.

 _No thanks_ , Taekwoon opens his mouth to say, but it’s too late.

"Anyway I'm not leaving until you fix it. So fix it." For all his bravado, Hakyeon is clinging on to the arm of Taekwoon’s chair, like he would drag it with him if Taekwoon banished him from his workshop.

Taekwoon turns in resignation, and trips on his robes.

This is the story of how Taekwoon got a boarder.

~*~

For a non-paying boarder who's seeking Taekwoon's help to remove an unwanted growth, Hakyeon sure has a lot of opinions on things.

"I'm not sure baking soda is going to do anything except make the poop shiny." “Will acid take off my hand too?” "You are not using a metal torch on me!" "Aren't you supposed to be a sorcerer? Do some sparkly magic thing and make it disappear. No wait, I still need that statue--no, _I take that back, Taekwoon_." And then, four hours later, forlornly, "I'm hungry."

So is Taekwoon. It’s been back-to-back nonstop trying various options because the sooner he finds the solution, the sooner he gets Hakyeon off his back. But curses are unpredictable things, and Taekwoon doesn’t even do curse breaking usually. And Sanghyuk, for all he’s supposed to be a magical cat, is no help at all.

He's too tired to cook, so what they do is order delivery. 

Hongbin's Healthier Hoption comes around in a picnic basket hoisted by six fluffy bunnies. Taekwoon almost coos but he holds in it, because Hakyeon is there and he has a reputation to uphold.

"Thank you," Taekwoon says to the first bunny, who hands him the bill. Hakyeon pulls out a sandwich that looks worse for wear after all the hopping and gives him a look of incredulity. "The rest of the lines were engaged," he says defensively. “And the bunnies were the quickest option.” 

"Don’t you mean, hoption?” Sanghyuk sniggers. Taekwoon swats at him and he bounds a safe distance away.

“Is this supposed to be deconstructed?" A piece of lettuce drops out of a corner of Hakyeon's sandwich.

"It's food, isn't it. Just eat it." Taekwoon throws his robes out so that they billow grandly and then bends down to pull a carrot stick from the basket. He lowers it to the nearest bunny for a nibble. They look underfed. He should leave a note for the owner. It's not right to ill-treat delivery bunnies like this.

"Are you sure it should be eating some more?" Hakyeon says suspiciously. "That bunny is freaking fat."

Taekwoon gasps and covers the bunny's ears. "That's not true!"

"It so is. That bunny is closer to having diabetes than anything. All the hopping doesn’t seem to be helping." Hakyeon struggles to put his sandwich together with one hand, and then makes a failed attempt to bring it to his mouth.

Taekwoon watches with vindictive delight while he holds out another carrot stick for the bunny. Serves him right for insulting the bunnies.

After the fourth time his sandwich falls apart before reaching his mouth, Hakyeon finally snaps. "Do I have to be a bunny for you to feed me?!"

There is a poof and a cloud of smoke, and a lovely brown bunny sits in Hakyeon's place, holding up a tiny golden pile of poop in its right paw.

Hakyeon is right, Taekwoon reflects as he holds out a piece of lettuce to the new and improved pink Hakyeon nose. He's a lot cuter as a bunny.

~*~

They soon discover that Hakyeon can turn into a variety of animals and objects whenever he feels any particularly strong emotion. Taekwoon always manages to find the reverse transformation spell in the end, but what he can’t find is how to stop the transformations in the first place. And It’s taking much longer than expected.

The day’s experiments end with Hakyeon sitting on an overturned crate, dripping wet, chalk lines drawn around him and a few scattered leaves on his lap. He'd turned into a bonsai earlier, with the golden poop balancing neatly on the top of his canopy like a crown. He looks miserable.

Taekwoon is torn between apologising to Hakyeon and defending himself, because it was Hakyeon who came to _him_ and not the other way around, and Taekwoon isn't even a professional cursebreaker. The options are so different they confuse him, so he blinks and says nothing.

Sanghyuk watches the proceedings with interest. "It's almost a game to see how many different shapes you can unlock," he offers, unhelpful as always. "If you turn into a pile of poop, would you be a pile of poop holding a pile of poop?" 

Sanghyuk screeches as he barely dodges the pail of water aimed at his head. He springs onto the cupboard and sits, tail vibrating, looking down at Hakyeon with beady eyes. Hakyeon glares back, a leaf fluttering out of his hair.

Despite himself, Taekwoon laughs.

There is a puff of smoke, and Taekwoon is forced to scoop up kitten Hakyeon before he topples off the crate.

~*~

Taekwoon’s personal favourite doesn’t appear yet. But that’s okay, because they’re all wrung out from the experiments (and Sanghyuk is exhausted from laughing at Hakyeon), and Hakyeon needs a bit of a rest before he can unknowingly add to their entertainment again.

Taekwoon closes up his workshop, and a silent Hakyeon trudges behind him on the path back to his house. Sanghyuk springs ahead, opting for quicker warmth. The fall nights can get surprisingly chilly. He grudgingly opens the door to his house for Hakyeon, who respectfully waits for him to enter before he follows behind him. 

“You can sleep here,” Taekwoon says, indicating the sofa. He pushes an extra blanket and a cushion into Hakyeon’s arms. “Bathroom’s there. Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen. I’m going to sleep.”

After a long day, it must be tiredness that stops Taekwoon just before he takes the stairs up to his room. Hakyeon is fluffing up the cushion, back towards him. There's only one lamp over him, casting shadows and making him look somewhat small and lonely in the large living room. The poop glistens miserably in his hand, as though poop had emotions.

It must be all this that makes Taekwoon blurt, "You worked hard today," and then immediately feel foolish because all Hakyeon did was sit around while Taekwoon tried yet another ill-advised spell on him--and, okay, turn into about twenty different shapes. That must have been exhausting.

Unexpectedly, Hakyeon’s ears turn pink.

That’s not all that turns pink. In fact, you could say the pink becomes a bit of an crisis. But, disgusted by his lapse in judgement, Taekwoon has already turned and managed to flee halfway up the stairs before he trips over the hem of his robes.

So he doesn’t discover it until the next morning, sleep-fogged and stumbling, hankering for a cup of tea. It’s a strange craving. Jung Taekwoon has always preferred his toffee nut lattes.

But today there is a teapot sitting on the dining room table. It's new and freshly steaming with tea. It has a pretty floral pattern, all faint violets and pinks and blues. Very fetching, and very appropriate maybe for his grandmother's tea set. Except, perhaps, for the small golden poop stuck on the top of the cover.

Taekwoon very calmly excuses himself into the garden so he can laugh into the off-season peonies. And then comes back and reads up on household reversal spells, over a hot cup of chamomile tea.

They later discover that Hakyeon can turn into a variety of teapots holding all sorts of loose-leaf teas. All he needs is the right incentive. 

When he's a teapot, Taekwoon gets some peace and quiet and also a fresh cup of tea. Taekwoon has the right incentive.

~*~

In retribution, perhaps, Hakyeon makes himself comfortable in the dusty attic, the only other serviceable room in Taekwoon’s house.

“Go home,” Taekwoon orders, the image of Hakyeon taking up permanent residence in his house striking sudden fear into his heart. “I'll let you know when I have the cure.”

"No way," Hakyeon declares. "You'll forget all about me. I know you." He sounds the slightest bit huffy. 

He has no right, when he was the one who didn’t say a word to Taekwoon when he abruptly left school in the middle of their last semester, and then didn’t contact him at all until he showed up on his doorstep eight years later dripping slime from his cursed hair. They were supposed to graduate together! Open a magic shop where Taekwoon would work on his spells and Hakyeon could smile and talk to the customers so Taekwoon would never have to do the unthinkable like meet them face-to-face. Now he has to do it all himself! Taekwoon doesn’t need friends like these. He already has a useless cat.

“I fixed you the last two times, didn’t I?”

Hakyeon glares, looking as menacing as someone standing in the middle of an old attic in pink socks possibly can. “The first time was easy! Easy for you. You just shaved all my hair off.”

Taekwoon keeps his face very straight. There might possibly have been other ways to get rid of mermaid-cursed slime dripping hair. Probably. But watching Hakyeon hobble off his doorstep hidden in the cloak he had borrowed from Taekwoon, sweating buckets in the summer heat while protecting his newly shaved head, is still one of Taekwoon’s favourite scenes.

“And the second time, I’m not sure you remembered you were supposed to be breaking a curse. You kept feeding the pigeons!”

“They looked hungry!”

Hakyeon sulks. “Anyway. I’m not sleeping on your couch anymore. There’s a spring that keeps digging into my back. I don’t like it.”

Hakyeon does look a little paler than usual, and he’s been looking a bit stiff when he moves around. Perhaps the couch is not a place to put a long-term guest.

"You’ll have to clean it yourself," Taekwoon warns at last. He’s pretty sure there are at least five separate nests of feral dust bunnies in the old attic. Probably somewhere behind all the cobwebs, his grandmother’s recipe books, a mountain of old photo albums his mother insisted he keep, and his spell books and written notes from every academic level in his life.

To his surprise, Hakyeon does.

"I can still do basic household spells," Hakyeon says proudly, when Taekwoon comes to inspect the source of all the muffled thumps and bumps. He can't quite hide his reaction at the sparkling clean floors.

“I didn’t think you actually learned them,” Taekwoon can’t stop himself from saying, and Hakyeon actually looks a little hurt. 

In a corner is a sofa Hakyeon has commandeered from somewhere. It’s a pristine white, fluffy thing that Taekwoon is certain he would remember if he owned it. 

“Did I always have that chair?” Taekwoon says, which sounds better than _well you always used to copy my homework, how was I to know you were really paying attention?_

“Apparently,” Hakyeon says, in a tone that sounds like _what kind of person are you, do you even know what you have in your house?_ “Isn’t it pretty?”

The light glints off the gold in his hand as he lifts it to present the sofa in the newly clean attic with the same amount of pride someone might use to present their new home. Taekwoon harrumphs and gets back to work.

~*~

There are many things people can't do when there is a poop statuette stuck on one of their hands. They can't tie their shoelaces. They take twice as long to shampoo their hair. They can't hold a sandwich without half of the contents falling out. Sometimes they forget it's there and try to rub their eyes with the pointy part of the poop and Taekwoon has to cast a lightning quick barrier spell before they do something he can’t reverse, not that he cares.

But Hakyeon can hold things, fetch things, and bring in the newspaper in the mornings. It's kind of like having a dog. A dog that cleans after itself (barring the ever-present sock trail), likes warm naps in the afternoon on Taekwoon's favourite plush chair, and sometimes likes watching Taekwoon with a lovesick puppy dog expression when he thinks he isn't looking.

Hakyeon soon makes himself comfortable in other ways. There is a toothbrush and pink cup with a heart on it in the bathroom, right next to Taekwoon's own. Sometimes it nudges over too close to Taekwoon's own, and Taekwoon's cup will fight back for space, but it is undeterred. Hakyeon's cup, like Hakyeon apparently, likes to cuddle.

The blue and white mug with seagulls that his mother gave him as a birthday present is now Hakyeon's. The seagulls flit across the surface of the mug whenever it's filled with hot liquid. "I'm not going to break your cup," Hakyeon would say, when Taekwoon stares too long at the seagulls flying into Hakyeon's slurping mouth.

When Taekwoon cooks now, he has to measure out a double portion. Hakyeon eats way more than he should. "I have a high metabolism rate!" Hakyeon protests. But he's also the one who loads the dishes into the washer and sets up the cleaning spells so that Taekwoon can flop on the couch and order Sanghyuk to give him a massage. Sanghyuk ignores him, of course.

The blender finds its way out of the cupboard and onto the kitchen table. Taekwoon didn't even know he owned a blender. 

"I felt like smoothies," Hakyeon says defensively, when Taekwoon catches him setting it up. "I can't keep eating that goop you call oatmeal."

"It's healthy," Taekwoon is compelled to say.

"It's disgusting," and that's the end of that.

Hakyeon makes himself a decadent banana strawberry chocolate smoothie with the yoghurt and milk Taekwoon keeps in the fridge, and tops it off with more maple syrup than one man can safely consume.

Taekwoon watches him gulp it down with loud slurps and resists the urge to lecture him on diabetes. "You'll regret it," he warns instead.

"But at least I'll be happy," Hakyeon says dreamily, high on sugar.

The next day, Hakyeon turns into a sock.

~*~

There is a sock lying on the table of his workshop. Taekwoon stares at it for a full minute.

“Stay there and don’t move,” Taekwoon warns. Not like Hakyeon is going to be doing any moving, but it feels good to tell him off anyway. It’s way too early in the morning for Hakyeon to pull this kind of stunt. Does he think Taekwoon’s so free to unravel whatever new shape Hakyeon’s turned himself into? And where in the world did he put grandmother’s book on magical knitting?

“Taekwoonie?” comes a voice. Taekwoon jumps in fright, and swivels his head back to the forgotten sock.

“Is this a new development?” he whispers at the neat yellow and grey cross-stitch pattern. “Can you speak while in object form?”

Someone clears his throat uncomfortably. “I’m behind you.” 

Taekwoon draws himself up fully before he turns around, but any words he may have prepared die when he meets Hakyeon’s eyes. 

Hakyeon studies him. “I am discovering that you don’t know half the things you have in your house.”

“I just have no need for blenders nor socks,” Taekwoon says, with dignity, hiding _Everything You Kneeded To Know About Knitting_ behind his back. “Or pretty sofas.” And okay, maybe he’s a little miffed that his attic chose to show Hakyeon a better side of itself. But it _is_ a pretty sofa.

“I needed to show you this.” Hakyeon pushes up the left sleeve of the sleeping shirt he’s wearing. There’s a terrible rash--and are those _blisters_? Taekwoon is horrified. 

“I think I’m allergic to chocolate,” Hakyeon says in a small voice.

After one heart-stopping moment, Taekwoon whirls into action. “Are you having trouble breathing?” Hakyeon looks a bit green to him.

“Not really--” 

“Sit down here.” 

“I don’t know why, I never was before--”

"Hold this please."

"But--"

"And don't talk," Taekwoon emphasises. "You'll ruin the spell."

Hakyeon looks like he's about to burst but obediently holds the piece of string at the angle Taekwoon needs it.

It's nice having an assistant, Taekwoon finds himself thinking, and then yanks hard at the string so that Hakyeon yelps. No.

The blisters disappear. Hakyeon loses that wheezy, rattling sound in his chest. Strangely enough, Taekwoon, too, seems to find it easier to breathe.

“I thought you were a herbalist,” Hakyeon says, cracking a smile.

“Good thing I took a course in first aid spells,” Taekwoon says, and in a moment of weakness, he smiles back at Hakyeon for the first time.

There is a puff of smoke and a clatter on the floor, like something metallic hit it. Taekwoon braces himself to pick up whatever it is Hakyeon has turned into this time.

Except Hakyeon is still there, staring wide-eyed at the gold poop statuette on the floor. And his smooth, unblemished hand.

~*~

Hakyeon spends the first few hours admiring the return of his un-poopified hand. Taekwoon cleans up silently, putting away the string and the water. The dust bunnies snuff out the chalk marks.

It's going to be strange not having Hakyeon's socks strewn all over the floor because his feet get cold at night. He always forgets to take them off until it gets too hot in the day, which leaves the endless trail of socks in the most random of places, like on the table in Taekwoon's workshop when he needs to work on his next spell. Or Hakyeon whining about Taekwoon's obsession with sandwiches, when really he just enjoyed watching Hakyeon fumble with the slices of bread.

At last, when even the dust bunnies are quiet, Taekwoon stands awkwardly, waiting for Hakyeon to be the first to say it.

And he does, because he’s Hakyeon, and Taekwoon has never made the first move in his life. “So. I’ll just be going now, then.”

"You should," Taekwoon agrees. It’s something he’s known would happen, ever since Hakyeon disappeared and kept reappearing just to disappear again.

“Thanks for letting me stay for the last couple of weeks,” Hakyeon begins, but all Taekwoon can do is stare blankly and nod from time to time, while his brain enumerates all the different ways Hakyeon has inserted himself into his life, starting from magic school, and how he takes them all away.

They part at the door. Taekwoon says goodbye to the tuft of hair above Hakyeon's right ear. Hakyeon shifts awkwardly into Taekwoon's line of sight, but Taekwoon's gaze is very good at moving so that it doesn't catch Hakyeon's.

“Take care of yourself, Taekwoonie,” Hakyeon is saying to the top of Taekwoon’s head. “Have some proper meals from time to time. I know you can cook, so stop ordering delivery.”

“Farewell,” Taekwoon says firmly. Hakyeon shouldn’t come back if he’s just going to go again.

Hakyeon makes one last attempt to catch Taekwoon’s eye, which he avoids. It would be too embarrassing, he tells himself sternly. By the time he judges It’s safe enough to look up, Hakyeon is nowhere in sight.

The house is quiet without Hakyeon. Taekwoon straightens the rug. He puts the cushions back on the sofa, instead of strewn over the locations Hakyeon last made himself comfortable at. There's still the attic to clean out, but he can do that tomorrow. It's getting late, and without Hakyeon to keep him awake talking about every inane topic that enters his head, he's getting sleepy.

Taekwoon heads to bed. His footsteps are too loud in the large space.

There’s a forlorn meow echoing in the living room downstairs. Sanghyuk must be missing Hakyeon.

~*~

The next morning, Taekwoon wakes with a start. It sounds like the coffee machine went off. But that can't be right. Unless Sanghyuk got into the kitchen again, just to annoy him. Taekwoon wouldn’t put it past him to pull a prank, just to make him think Hakyeon’s still there.

It’s funny how living with someone else for a while can make someone feel strange when they’re no longer around. 

It’s like size spells for furniture that take the space of their surroundings. Expanding big when there’s a large space, or shrinking smaller to fit into an attic, or large again to suit a lonely man in a dusty room he’s turned into his own. Hakyeon expanded to fit into the empty space in Taekwoon’s house, and now that he’s gone the space he’s left feels bigger than ever.

And then there's an unmistakable thump from downstairs, followed by a muttered curse.

Taekwoon bolts off his bed and wraps his dressing gown properly around him. He inches out of the room and down the stairs.

There is what looks like offerings spread out on the table. An assortment of spring flowers blooming in their jars. A nest of bright blue robin eggs. A collection of gold rings. And, next to the entire array is an old antique cupboard, sitting squat beside the table and looking decidedly out of place.

"I hope you didn't damage my lock when you broke in," Taekwoon says.

The cupboard stays perfectly still.

“Because if you did you’d better be ready to pay.”

“I brought your socks back,” Hakyeon says, from behind him.

“They’re not mine, they’re yours,” Taekwoon says, puzzled. He doesn’t own grey socks with canaries printed all over them.

“I got them from your cupboard,” Hakyeon says. “I think you need someone to clean up after you.”

“My house is perfectly clean.”

“Just the parts that people see.”

Taekwoon grunts. Hakyeon looks good, if a little unbalanced without the poop on his hand. He even remembered to comb his hair this morning. 

“I made coffee,” Hakyeon offers. “I also fed Sanghyuk and changed his water. And got this extra cupboard, I think it’s enchanted. They’ll fit your things nicely.”

Taekwoon waits.

Hakyeon shifts his weight from one foot to another. “I thought you needed someone to remind you not to have oatmeal all the time. I brought sandwiches.”

“And a hammock,” Taekwoon notes.

“It looked comfortable.”

“I suppose you think you’re moving in then.”

“You need someone to deal with the customers who come to buy your spells, don't you? So you can brood at the back and pretend to be tall, dark and mysterious in your older sister’s robes?”

“These robes,” Taekwoon says, “are mine.”

“So they are,” Hakyeon says, unconvinced, and Taekwoon can see him plotting to get them altered in some way so Taekwoon will stop tripping over them.

“You were the one who left in the first place,” Taekwoon accuses. 

“I couldn’t graduate spell school, you know that.”

“You didn’t even say anything!”

“I was on the run!” Hakyeon protests. “I needed to make a living. But I’m done running now.” He hesitates. “I would have said something if I could have. I just couldn’t send any word. It’s a job hazard. But I did come back, didn’t I?” Hakyeon is earnest.

“Several times,” Taekwoon admits grudgingly. “Did you get yourself cursed on purpose?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d see me otherwise.”

Neither is Taekwoon. He sighs. “No more outstanding debts then?”

“The gold statuette took care of the last of it.” Hakyeon gives his best impersonation of a puppy, so well that Taekwoon has to check he isn’t starting to grow fur somewhere. “I’m just looking for someone to make an honest man of me. I can clean up, make smoothies, and distract customers from the mess in your workshop. Just in exchange for food and board, I don’t ask much wages.”

“You eat a lot,” Taekwoon points out. But it does sound nice. His house has adapted to having Hakyeon inside it, and his workshop could do with someone to tend the front desk while he tends to his spells. And the occasional smoothie wouldn’t hurt, either. 

And okay, it would be nice to have Hakyeon around. Just in the convenient sense of the word. 

He clears his throat. “There will be a contract.”

“I’ll sign it,” Hakyeon says immediately.

“There are consequences for breaking the contract,” Taekwoon warns.

Hakyeon looks aghast. “More curses?”

“Like you’ve never seen before,” he threatens.

To his surprise, Hakyeon beams. “Then I’ll just have to come back here to get rid of them, don’t I?”

“Don’t even leave in the first place,” Taekwoon grumbles, and freezes. “I mean, do you know what a pain it is to untangle them? I mean.” He clears his throat before Hakyeon can say anything. “Anyway. I guess you can stay. I've grown accustomed to your face.”

Hakyeon’s face breaks into a smile, and Taekwoon unthinkingly returns it. Hakyeon, thankfully, remains decidedly Hakyeon-shaped.


End file.
